A 25-minute phone call between House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, the first time in weeks that the pair has spoken, has unfortunately produced more of the same when it comes to the status of coronavirus stimulus talks in Washington DC: Stalemate and recriminations, as both major parties remain as far apart as ever on the particulars of any new legislation.
This is especially bad news for the millions of Americans who’d been hoping for a new stimulus check to help them weather the financial storm associated with the coronavirus pandemic — something that 1 million Americans could especially use now that they’ve filed claims for unemployment benefits for the first time, the Labor Department said on Thursday. That increase means that, overall, a little more than 58 million Americans have sought jobless aid for the first time over the last 23 weeks as the pandemic has unfolded in the US.
Republicans in Congress are poised to reportedly get behind a new and much narrower coronavirus stimulus bill with a smaller price tag than they’ve proposed before, though new stimulus checks won’t be part of the mix of benefits it includes. Nevertheless, a lucky few are actually going to get a new stimulus check (starting as soon as next week), thanks to the fact that the IRS has said it’s preparing to send out 50,000 new checks.
But before you start cheering over this, though, be aware — these new checks are actually just to correct a mistake and to give the recipients money the IRS says should have been part of the checks they got during the first wave of stimulus payments earlier this year.
In its official announcement about these “catch-up payments,” as the IRS is describing them, the tax agency explains that it will:
“send catch-up Economic Impact Payment checks to about 50,000 individuals whose portion of the EIP was diverted to pay their spouse’s past-due child support.
These catch-up payments are due to be issued in early-to-mid-September. They will be mailed as checks to any eligible spouse who submitted Form 8379, Injured Spouse Allocation, along with their 2019 federal income tax return, or in some cases, their 2018 return. These spouses do not need to take any action to get their money. The IRS will automatically issue the portion of the EIP that was applied to the other spouse’s debt.”
If you’re a taxpayer affected by this announcement, you can check the status of your catch-up payment by using the Get My Payment tool, available at IRS.gov.